Vault Warriors and Silent Soldiers
by RNG 117
Summary: Lilith ends up in New Mombasa during the events of Halo 3: ODST. Can she find a way home? Rated M for language, just to be safe. COMPLETE!
1. Dragged

**Edit on 12/21/16 for small errors**

* * *

 **Lilith  
Vault of the Warrior**

"No rest for the wicked," stated Lilith with grim in her voice.

She gazed at the four vault hunters, Maya the blue-haired Siren, Salvador the Gunzerker, Axton the Commando, and Zero the Assassin that helped her in eliminating Handsome Jack.

"Go ahead and travel back to Sanctuary, I'll meet you all there. I have to make sure that the Vault is deactivated for good."

The vault hunters immediately gave her a sign of concern. At this, Lilith reassured them that she would be fine. After watching the group of four leave, Lilith gazed at the key to the vault on the ground. It still had purple surges of energy flashing on it from the Eridium that had been used to charge it.

 _'I wish that I can just throw the thing into the lava'_ Lilith thought to herself as she stared. ' _My luck it would probably teleport back and club me in the head.'_ She sighed as she placed her hand on the key.

 _'If I have to go on another adventure to kill things, it would be too soon.'_

As if on cue, the Vault arch started glowing a bright purple. Lilith jerked her head up in surprise as she never expected the vault to be activated twice on one charge, as it took 200 years to charge enough Eridium into a key to open a Vault, or less than 3 if you enslaved a Siren to charge it. She slowly approached the arch fearing that another creature would pop out of the lava and squish her like a bug. It nearly took the four vault hunters an hour to take down The Warrior with all the weapons they had on them, which ranged from corrosive pistols to rocket launchers. Who knew if Lilith could take down a similar creature with no backup.

When she was no less than 30 feet from the arch, Lilith was sucked toward the entrance of the vault. She was able to latch onto a crack in the ground and yell a transmission into her ECHO device.

"HELP," she screamed, "I'M BEING PULLED INTO THE VAULT! SEND AS MUCH HELP AS POSSIBLE!"

She didn't have time to hear a response as she finally lost her grip and was dragged through the entrance and into a whole new world.


	2. New Mombasa

**Hello everyone! I just wanted to quickly add how wonderful it is for the people who read this story. This is my first story so far and I received about 20 views from 3 different countries within 5 hours man! It makes me happy!**

 **Anyways before I continue with the story, I just want to give a shout out to the user named _The Funky Panda_ who gave me my first review. It means a lot to me. I wanted to thank him in a private message but he disabled it on his profile : (**

 **Anyways thanks to everyone who read the story and please leave reviews if you want to help me in my quest to make a good fanfic.**

 **And just so everyone knows, Borderlands and Halo are owned by gearbox and 343i respectively**

 **Edited on 12/21/16. Fixed minor errors.**

* * *

 **Lilith  
Unknown Location**

"Where the heck am I now," Lilith questioned aloud as she gazed at her new surroundings.

She saw a golden sky with a large purple ship hovering above her. Along with this, she saw a large pillar of rings that rose into the sky as if it supported the sky from falling onto the ground. As she moved her gaze downward, she noticed that the streets were littered with burned out cars and bodies of civilians. Gunfire can be heard off in the distance and aircraft of some sort flying around shooting the daylights out of each other. There were signs with a green emoji sort of face with the message _PLEASE EVACUATE_ flashing in the center of the picture. Buildings around 2-3 stories tall surrounded Lilith and had large, gaping holes in them from what she assumed was artillery fire.

Lilith looked at one of the signs and noticed a name in the corner that said _New Mombasa_.

"New Mombasa huh..." Lilith said to herself, "sounds like a crappy name for a city. But at least I know where I am now."

She saw her ECHO device laying on the ground not 10 feet in front of her. She walked over to it and picked it up off the ground.

"The damn thing still works huh. Well, let me see if I can catch a signal with it."

After tinkering with it for a few minutes, she was able to catch a faint but audible transmission.

 _"I take it back, the Navy got its butt kicked"_ the signal started.

 _"Hey Romeo, remember when I told you to shut your mouth"_ another voice said to answer the first

 _"Yea"_ the one apparently named Romeo answered

 _"Consider it a standing order"_ the second voice snapped.

"Wow, someone sounds angry," Lilith said as the conversation continued.

 _"Captain? Fifteen clicks off the deck"_ the second voice said.

 _"Stand my to adjust trajectory. On my mark."_ A third, but female voice, apparently the Captain replied.

Lilith suddenly heard a noise of something burning. She gazed at the sky and saw a group of bright lights. Each of them leaving a smoke trail as they fell through the sky. Off in the distance, the giant purple ship pulsed with energy.

During this, the conversation was going on and Lilith didn't really pay attention to it until the energy pulsed.

 _"Did the Covenant just set off a nuke?"_ A different voice asked with a frightened tone.

This part of the transmission was the one that completely caught Lilith's attention, more specifically at the soldier's mentioning of the Covenant.

"This Covenant faction sounds like who these people are fighting. And maybe they are very dangerous. But I could probably kick their asses ten times around the whole damn planet." Lilith said to herself, remembering how easily Hyperion fell.

She immediately looked for a place to hide. She found herself a semi-empty dumpster that had enough room for her to hide in, but probably not much else.

 _"No, the carrier's going to jump! It's a-"_ The transmission abruptly ended.

She didn't really get to finish hearing what the Captain was talking about or to make sense of it as an ear-splitting bang erupted from the giant ship. A bright flash began to swarm it's way toward Lilith. She barely had time to close the lid before the she blacked out.

* * *

 **So, that might have been a cheesy way to end it but it seems like the only way I can get the story to move along.**

 **Thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed.**


	3. The Soldier

**Hello guys. I'm back with another chapter. Hope you guys enjoy my story and if you have any suggestions for this story or other story ideas, tell me in a review or send me a message so that I know. Anyways, enjoy this next chapter.**

 **Edited on 12/21/16. Fixed minor errors.**

* * *

 **Ch.3 The Soldier**

 **Location: A dumpster somewhere in New Mombasa**  
 **6 hours after arrival**

Lilith slowly regained consciousness. She could hear a soft pelting of raindrops pinging against the dumpster that she hid in. The lid was slightly ajar, revealing the now nighttime sky to her.

"I've woken up in some odd places on Pandora," Lilith muttered as she pulled herself out of the trash dump, "but this one takes the damn cake."

Now back on her feet, she took two steps before falling flat on her face. Her legs falling asleep combined with being weak from charging the Vault Key wasn't equaling a good result on Lilith's motor functions. Struggling back to her feet, she decided to take stock of her current equipment and ammo. She had no shield and weapons as they were confiscated by Handsome Jack before she was hooked up to the same AI system that housed his enslaved daughter Angel. Same goes for her ammo.

The only thing left that she had was her ECHO device and the Class 12 heads up display that was given to her when she first set foot on Pandora when looking for the first Vault. The display showed one's health, shields, ammo, and even a mini-map.

 _'God, I wish that annoying little robo box was here right now.'_

As much as she got annoyed with his over-enthusiastic voice, it would help to have some company. She gazed around the area and found a dispenser against a wall. The word _Optican_ was shown above two small containers. Each container also had _Optican_ flashing on them. The dispenser had an automated voice that said, " _Optican, healthcare on demand._ "

"Healthcare huh..." said Lilith with a questioning look.

She slowly took one of the canisters from the dispenser and opened it. Inside was a syringe that looked similar to the ones that Dr. Zed used on Pandora, or tried to use anyway. Thankfully, these were much cleaner than any that she had seen on Pandora. She injected the syringe in her right arm, as she didn't want to find out what happens if you put a medical shot into a Siren's left, tattooed arm. The effects of the shot were almost instantaneous. She felt almost no weakness in her legs or arms and had enough energy to level all of the bandits that were likely living inside of the Firehawk lair, where she lived and hid from Hyperion before being rescued by the four Vault Hunters.

However, her good fortune wouldn't last as she heard footsteps. But these weren't normal human steps, these sounded like a large creature instead. Lilith reached for a gun by instinct and found none. So, she decided to flee behind the trash bin that she had been sleeping in and stay there until the creature passed. The footsteps stopped and Lilith decided to peak over the edge of the can. There was a tall, beefy creature standing in the street. It wore dark blue armor with light blue lights in a few areas. She noticed how the creature had fur underneath and in exposed parts of the armor. In it's right hand, it held a small weapon that sported a large, silver blade on it. Surrounding the creature were two other unknowns. One was small and had a triangle shaped tank on it's back. It held an even smaller weapon. This one was no larger than the smaller creature's head and had a green glow at the end of it. The other was tall and limber. It had a blue shield on it's left arm and had the same weapon as the smaller creature.

They stood there, as if their purpose was to just stare into the darkness.

 _BANG!_

A loud explosion rocked the night. Lilith noticed a door or something fly passed her and down the street. Then, a dark figure jumped down from the darkness. The three creatures then stared firing their weapons at the figure. However, this figure knew how to fight. Flashing muzzles and gunfire erupted from both the figure and the three unknown lifeforms. Before Lilith knew it, the figure was the only one left standing in the darkened street. The figure slowly walked and panted as if he was hurt. He went up to the same dispenser as Lilith had done moments ago.

Lilith was now able to get a good look of the figure. He had a dark helmet with a silver visor on it, sleek shoulder pads and a square chest plate. On his hip, he had what looked like a pistol. It had green-glowing sights and looked like it was silenced. The weapon in his hand looked more like a SMG. The small gun had red-glowing sights instead of the pistol's green. It also looked to be a silenced weapon. It din't take a rocket scientist for Lilith to figure out that he was a soldier

Lilith decided that it might be a good idea to slip away while he didn't notice her. As she started to leave the safety of the trash bin, she accidentally kicked a can. This caused the soldier to turn a complete 180 and aim his pistol at Lilith. At the sound of the safety being flicked off, Lilith froze like a skag in the headlights. She knew that the situation wasn't an ideal one to be in at the present moment and should try to get herself out of it. Lilith wasn't much of a charismatic person but rather a stubborn one in situations like these. She turned slowly to face the soldier. He stood not 50 feet away from her with his pistol aimed at her head. Lilith thought that this was the end. She couldn't get herself out of this one using her Siren powers either due to the absence of Eridium. But just then, the soldier looked above Lilith's head and threw a grenade over her head. She ducked out of the way just as the soldier fired his pistol at the grenade, causing it to send an enemy creature 5 feet in the air. The creature squealed like a little girl as it flew and then died.

As Lilith had her attention switch from the dying foe, the soldier stepped up to Lilith and helped her off of the ground.

"Thanks, I guess" said Lilith. The soldier didn't reply verbally, he just nodded his head in acknowledgement. He then gave Lilith his pistol and 48 spare rounds for it, which she took without a second thought. He then took off down the street.

"Well, it's either follow the experienced soldier or go it alone in a place that you don't know about" Lilith muttered to herself.

"Hey," she said to the solider, "wait up!"

And so the two began their journey into the occupied city of New Mombasa

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 **Thank you for reading  
See you all in the next chapter**

 **RNG OUT**


	4. UPDATE

**PLEASE READ THIS**

 **(Edited on 12/21/19. Removed irrelevant information.)**

 **Hey guys! RNG here.** **So, the reason why I want you to read this was because I need to address something.**

 **The enemy names** **,**

 **In previous chapters, I tried my best to name the enemies from Lilith's point of view and didn't exactly go right. So, I am going to use the following terms to describe enemies from her POV:**

 **Grunts-Runts (suicide grunts wil just be called suicide runts)  
Jackals-Gladiators (sniper jackals will be called Snipers)  
Brutes-Apes  
Hunters-Goliaths  
Drones-Mosquitos  
Engineers-Floating bags of gas**

 **Please keep this in mind as the next few chapters. Lilith will eventually learn the names of the enemies, but for now, this is what she will refer to them as.**

 **RNG OUT!**


	5. Prepare to Drop

**Hey guys! RNG here!**

 **So by the majority request, this chapter, along with others, will have the Rookie's point of view of things in the story. If you guys have any other suggestions, please leave a review and tell me what I can improve on or add. All support is appreciated.  
(I would also like to add that I am sorry for any spelling/grammar problems that you see)**

 **Enjoy!**

 **Edited on 12/21/16. Fixed minor errors.**

* * *

 ** _Ch.4 Prepare to Drop_**

 ** _Location:_ UNSC MARATHON CLASS CRUISER: _SAY MY NAME  
_** ** _A few minutes before drop_**

Sleep

That's all the Rookie ever wanted to do before any combat mission. He learned a long time ago that sleeping off your fears of an upcoming mission was a great way to improve combat efficiency.

However, as he slept, he sometimes had nightmares. This was one of those times.

He stood in a field of wavy golden sunflowers. The sun was in a high noon position. A single mountain stood in the background. He had an odd recognition of the mountain, but couldn't place his finger on the thought. He gazed down at his own body. He was still in his ODST battle armor and even had a BR55 Battle Rifle in his hands.

 _'How odd'_ He thought to himself.

He turned his head to his right to find a woman standing there. She had tan skin with short, dirt brown hair that slightly covered her face. She had soft features and a slim figure. He recognized her as his girlfriend.

Something seemed odd, as she just stood there, not running into his arms or even recognizing him. She just stared at him.

 _BANG_

A lone sniper bullet pierced through the calm noon sky. A crimson-red blood began to pool on the woman's chest.

Gazing down at the bullet, then back at him, the woman then replied with grim, "It's all your fault." and fell to the ground.

As she hit the ground, a bright flash appeared from the mountain. At this moment, he knew where he was and what had happened. The mountain that exploded was Mount Haven on the now glassed world of New Jerusalem. The explosion was from a Shiva Nuclear missile detonated by his CO at the time, Gage Yevgenny, to prevent a group of rouge ODSTs from taking their Pelican's cargo from themselves after it was shot down. He grew depressed at the thought of the incident. As the explosion reached the Rookie, his vision faded to white and then a sudden pain hit his chest.

Startled by the events of the dream and the sudden pain, he woke up to Romeo, the sniper of his current squad Alpha-Nine, holding a 99D-S2 Anti-Material Sniper Rifle. He had blue ODST armor in contrast to the default black.

"Wake up, Buttercup," he said.

The Rookie then made the connection that Romeo hit him with the sniper rifle to wake him up.

Romeo was suddenly pushed out of the view of the Rookie by Dutch, another member of his squad. He had an orange-yellow colored chestplate. He held two M7S Caseless SMGs. Each gun had a red-dot sight mounted on the top of the small firearm. Along with a silencer at the barrel and 48-round magazine attached to the side. These were standard firearms for ODSTs on stealth ops.

 _'I thought we would be on a covenant ship. Why would we need stealth weapons?'_ the Rookie questioned to himself with worry.

"Relax Rookie. He don't mean nothin'," Dutch said as he handed one of the weapons to him, "Besides. Now's one of those times, it pays to be the strong, silent type."

The Rookie instantly grabbed the weapon from Dutch's hand and mounted his single-seater drop pod. He patted his right thigh and found that his M6C SOCOM silenced pistol was already there. The M6 had a black finish with green glow sights, an integrated silencer, a twelve round mag, and a pretty damn fast fire rate for a semi-auto pistol. The M6C was also a weapon commonly used for stealth weapons.

 _'Mickey and Buck must already be in his pod'_ he thought.

Mickey was the squad's pilot, and the demolition expert. He wore red armor in contrast to the variety of colors that the squad already supported on their armor.

Buck, on the other hand, was his squad leader, and wore armor that had a similar color to the Rookie's. Instead, he had a command uplink on his helmet and a combat knife attached to his chest plate.

After taking a seat, he forced the M7S into one of the weapon holsters on the left side of him. The doors to the pod then closed as the pod was moved to the drop bay of the ship. The Rookie could see everything as the pod came with four windows that were mounted on the door. Many pods were visible from his current position.

Inside the pod were many teal green screens with stats and information scrolling across them. Two larger screens, one on each side of the pod, lit up with two helmets on them. On the left screen was Buck, who had his ODST helmet depolarized. On the right screen, there was a helmet and face that he didn't recognize. The helmet was blue and had a visor that ran only over the eyes whereas the standard ODST helmet's visor covered the entire face. The only indication of a name was the word _Dare_ written across the top of the helmet.

 _'Maybe Dare is a nickname'_ the Rookie wondered.

"Latest intel reports. Covenant troops are massing beneath the carrier." Dare began over the radio.

"They're pulling back? Why?" Buck responded, questioning Dare's statement.

"We're not going to find out way up here." Dare shot back, intent on ending the conversation.

At this point, the helmets on the screens polarized with Buck's being the default ODST black and Dare's having a yellow glow.

"We're dropping into hell troopers! Time to grow a pair!" Buck shouted to nobody in particular.

A series of four beeps began. The first three had the same pitch, with the fourth having a higher pitch to signify the drop.

The pods were released from the cruiser's drop bay and a sudden presence of motion almost made the Rookie fly from where he sat, he quickly latched onto the hand grips on each side of his seat.

As he stared out of the window, the clouds rushed toward the pods with great speed. Wishing for a different sight, he looked up to see the New Mombasa Space Elevator extending from the ground into space and a Charon-class light frigate that was split down the middle and was starting to dip towards Earth's surface.

"I take it back. Navy got it's butt kicked." said Romeo over the radio.

"Hey Romeo," Buck replied with a stern voice, "Remember when I told you to shut your mouth."

"Yeah?"

"Consider that a standing order."

That shut Romeo up.

After reaching the cloud layer, Buck spoke up again.

"Captain? Fifteen klicks of the deck."

"Standby to adjust trajectory. On my mark," Dare replied.

"What did she just say?" Dutch asked with surprise.

"Mark!" Dare commanded.

The Rookie felt a slight shift in the pod as it's maneuvering thrusters kicked in and adjusted the pod's trajectory. He could see the gigantic carrier hovering near the base of the Space Elevator. The carrier had a purple/silver gleam outline with dark areas massing around the interior parts of the top of the ship.

"We're way off course!" Mickey complained.

"We're headed exactly where I need to go!" Dare shot at Mickey.

"But we're going to miss the carrier!" Mickey complained once more.

A blue-purple pulse of energy flowed through the body of the carrier.

"Radiation!" Dutch screamed with alarm.

"Did the Covenant just set off a nuke?" Mickey asked, who was more alarmed than Dutch.

"No," Dare started, "The carrier's going to jump! It's a slipspace rupture! You need to-"

Dare didn't get to finish her command as a bright light appeared in front of the carrier. Then, in an instant, the carrier sped through the light faster than light. An EMP began to pulse through the air. A flurry of panicked screams and commotion began to echo through the Rookie's radio. He couldn't make out what any of his comrades were shouting as a pod slammed into his own, cracking the glass of his pod. As if by instinct, he held onto anything he could as his pod spun out of control.

After several seconds, his vision went black and he could hear nothing.

* * *

 **6 hours later**

The Rookie struggled to open his eyes as he slowly drifted back into consciousness.

 _'What have I gotten into this time'_ he thought to himself, remembering the New Jerusalem incident.

After finally held his eyes open for more than 4 seconds as he scanned his pod. He noticed that the windows of the pod were cracked to the point of having no visibility out of them, there were 4 lime-green lights on the corners of the pod door, and that the screens were now dark, with no sign of activity. His radio was dead silent, and most likely broken.

 _'How do I get out of here_ '

His HUD flashed with a message that told him to manually eject the pod door by hitting the 4 lights on the sides of the door. He complied as he hit all four of them, turning each light a cherry red. As the last light turned red, the pod began to hiss and produce smoke.

BANG!

The door flew off and, too the Rookie's dismay, fell five stories down into the street. Instead of blindly jumping out of the pod, as his training told him to, he scanned the surrounding area from his pod. The sky was pitch black with a small orange glow from the fires that spread across the city. The once standing orbital space elevator was now shattered and aflame. He could see pieces of it from his pod. Small sounds of sirens and bright lights from police cars could be observed. More cars and trash were scattered across the street to make the world's biggest traffic jam. Streetlights were still glowing. Even a Phantom Dropship passed by, searching for any more human enemies that may have hid from the initial battle.

Grabbing his M7S and his M6C, he jumped down from the pod and instantly regretted it.

He could hear his bones crack as he hit the street. To make matter's worse, a covenant patrol found him right as he landed, assuming they were investigating the loud noise that his pod made when it opened. One grunt, a jackal, and a brute all stood there for not a second before raising their weapons.

But, they weren't fast enough.

He raised his pistol and shot the grunt with a single, clean head-shot.

Moving on to the jackal, he shot a kink in it's glowing blue shield, causing it to recoil and opening up his opportunity for the instant head-shot.

After dealing with the jackal, the only thing left standing was the brute, who fired it's Spiker at him at him.

A few of the spikes hit the Rookie in the chest plate, causing him to grunt in agony.

The Rookie then switched to his SMG and unloaded the entire clip into the beast. The brute shrugged off the barrage until all of it's armor was shattered. Then, the brute cried a roar of pure fury and charged the soldier.

Seeing the charge, the Rookie switched back to his pistol and unloaded the rest of the clip into the brute's head followed by a quick pistol whip as the brute came close.

The brute, finally defeated, slumped to the ground lifelessly.

Checking his HUD, the Rookie noticed his vitals weren't looking too good. The bar that monitored the vitals was orange and depleted halfway, both from the attack and the initial fall from the pod. Slowly, he walked over to the side of a building to an OPTICAN healthcare center, where one white canister set in the dispenser, whereas another was on the ground and already opened.

 _'Someone must have already passed through here, maybe they can help me find my squad'_ the Rookie thought hopefully.

As he stuck the shot into his shoulder, the Rookie heard a small _PING behind him._

Wasting no time, he turned around, pistol in hand, expecting a grunt or some other covenant enemy to neutralize.

Instead, what he found was much weirder.

In front of him stood a woman, hands raised in surrender. However, she wasn't like the one in the dream. She had red hair brushed to one side, turning white at the edges. On her left arm, he saw a baby blue tattoo of some sort, stretching from her hand to the middle of her chest. She had a rose red, sleeveless top covered by a yellow overcoat accompanied by brown pants. While her eyes had some worry in them, she could still probably kill him with a quick stare.

 _'She thinks I'm going to shoot her, isn't she'_

As much as he wanted to question how she got here and what her intentions were, or even shooting her for scaring the ever living shit out of him, he had other things to worry about. Suddenly, he aimed his pistol above the woman's head and chucked a frag grenade. She ducked out of the way of the sailing grenade. As it bounced and detonated, a grunt flew into the air and screamed as it died, landing next to a potted plant. He then jogged up to the strange woman and pulled her up.

"Thank's, I guess." she said as the Rookie helped her to her feet.

He nodded his head in acknowledgement and gave her his pistol.

 _'I'm sure I can find another, she needs it more than I do'_ he thought as he walked away.

"Hey!"

He turned and found the woman running up to meet him.

"Wait up!"

 _'I guess I don't mind having some company'_ the Rookie noted.

And so, the two walked into New Mombasa together.

* * *

 **Before everyone asks, yes the** _ **Say My Name**_ **is a Marathon class Heavy Cruiser (I looked it up)**  
 **And, if any of you guys want to be in that upcoming story that I mentioned (see the update chapter) let me know via private message or review.**

 **Thanks for reading, see you in the next chapter.  
** **RNG OUT!**


	6. Keep it Clean

**Hello Guys!**

 **I would like to thank all of you for reading this story (which is my first) and giving your feedback. Keep in mind that enemies' names are different from the original in Lilith's POV. Check the UPDATE chapter for more info.**

 **Anyways enjoy the chapter.**

 **Edited on 12/22/16. Fixed minor errors.**

* * *

 **Lilith  
** **Mombasa Streets**

' _This just keeps getting weirder and weirder by the minute'_ Lilith thought to herself as she walked alongside the mysterious stranger.

' _At least I get to do something different'_

The two walked down the street, passing abandoned cars and other debris. As they entered a plaza, not too far from where Lilith was found by the soldier, they saw more enemies and began to eliminate them as if they were simply paper targets. The soldier stuck towards eliminating the Apes and larger enemies while she stuck to shooting the Runts with easy headshots.

Lilith went to aim at an approaching Gladiator and pulled the trigger of her pistol and...

 _Click_

"Shit!"

She quickly searched for a new clip and found none.

"Hey, tough guy!" she shouted at the soldier who was currently in a fight with another Gladiator.

"A little help here?"

He quickly dispatched Lilith's Gladiator with a barrage of silenced bullets into the kink in its shield, and then into the creature itself.

Then, as quickly as he had before, he turned back to the other Gladiator and whacked it upside the head.

With both creatures dead, the two began to move along.

 _RRRRIIIIINNNNNGGGG!_

The pair turned to find a phone ringing on a nearby set of wall phones.

The soldier approached with caution and simply touched its silver exterior.

Suddenly, Lilith began to feel her ECHO device vibrate in its holster. Then a message appeared on the edge of her HUD.

 _New map and mission objectives downloaded_

"What the hell?"

She glanced at the soldier, who was blankly starring at the nearby wall, and then back to her ECHO device. She grabbed her ECHO and scrolled to the map section. The map looked different than it did on Pandora. This map showed a jumble of streets, roadways, and red blocks. The red blocks puzzled her. She then saw a pulsing blue light in a building, which wasn't too far from her location.

Lilith then scrolled over to her mission objectives and saw that a few objectives were present:

 _Investigate Tayari Plaza_  
 _Investigate Wildlife Exploration Preserve_  
 _Investigate Kizingo Boulevard_  
 _Investigate NMPD Headquarters_  
 _Investigate Kikowani Station_  
 _Explore the city at night_

"Looks like we have plenty of exploration to do." she said to the soldier, who was now looking at her. He seemed eager to go to the locations mentioned in the mission objectives log, like he was a bandit going to find stashes of guns, money, or other loot.

"Let's get going."

The pair began to walk down the street once more, passing a particularly large building with stairs leading up to it, though it wasn't a skyscraper.

This was when they hit their first roadblock: a locked door.

The door stretched across the street and had a small keypad in the center of it. Above it, a red sign flashed saying: _ROUTE CLOSED_.

Lilith was about to force the door with her Siren powers, but suddenly had second thoughts. For one thing, this soldier might not take her forcing the door open with, what he would assume to be magic too kindly. She was pulled out of her thoughts when the soldier then tapped Lilith on the shoulder and pointed towards the left side of the door.

She saw a small courtyard with four pillars, each with signs on them, four small doors, and a row of red lights.

The pair approached the courtyard. As they did, the signs on the pillars switched to things such as _detour_ and pointed toward to a specific door. But as Lilith approached the door, she heard a loud hissing sound coming form her left. She turned to find the soldier standing at the row of red lights. The lights descended into the ground to reveal a garage. Inside the garage, were a pair of ATVs and two racks of weapons. The first contained four small pistols; similar to the one she was given. The other had a set of four weapons similar to the soldier's. They approached the racks and grabbed ammo for their respective weapons. They decided to leave the ATVs for later.

The pair approached the door that the signs pointed to. The soldier pressed the green light, which was absent on the other doors in the courtyard as they had red ones, and the door slid open. The soldier dove into the room, searching for enemies left and right. Lilith followed at a slower pace, checking behind her so that no enemies have followed them. Returning to facing the soldier once more, she saw scattered chairs, tables and other furniture along with wall graffiti scattered all across the small room. Silently, they made their way to the opposite door, which had the same look as the one they entered in, and opened to a grassy courtyard...

...filled with sleeping Runts.

' _Well damn.'_ Lilith thought.

A quick scan of the courtyard showed that there were a few raised planters that could be used as a light cover.

Silent as the night, the soldier and Lilith approached two of the planters that sat directly by the door. With a quick nod of acknowledgement from the soldier, Lilith opened fire on all the Runts, clearing the courtyard in ten seconds flat and with only 2 rounds to spare in the magazine.

Moving across the courtyard and entering another door, Lilith's ECHO began to buzz and beep with all kinds of excitement. Looking at the screen, the words _BEACON NEARBY_ were flashing.

Continuing into the building, the first room that the pair came across looked like a massacre. Blood was splattered on the far wall by a dead soldier. Furniture appeared to have been toppled over and flung across the room. Bullet holes were a frequent sight on the walls.

Along with all of the scattered furniture, there was another weapon on the floor. However, this weapon wasn't like the others Lilith encountered. Instead of a compact SMG type weapon, this was longer and had an ammo counter of sorts mounted on the weapon. She picked it up and followed the soldier to a flight of stairs.

* * *

 **The Rookie  
Tayari Plaza**

' _That seems like a good weapon for you'_ The Rookie thought to himself as the woman picked up an MA5C Assault Rifle.

The two began to ascend a flight of stairs toward the assumed location of the beacon.

Reaching the second level of the building, the Rookie motioned the woman to check all the doors on one side of the hallway, while he did the other.

"Jeez, you are just a silent one aren't you." the woman replied with anger in her voice.

Their search came up empty handed on the second floor, with the exception of the woman finding a M90 Shotgun and returning the pistol to the Rookie.

With no luck on the third floor, that meant that the beacon was definitely on the fourth and final floor of the building, unless it somehow ended up on the roof.

The pair searched the hallway and found nothing. However, instead of the hallway having a dead end, it lead to another room. Following the path to the room with caution, the Rookie then found the beacon: Dare's Helmet. Feeling along the helmet's surface, he found something jammed into the side of the helmet. Removing the piece, it turned out that it was and audio clip that must have been on Dare's helmet.

' _Maybe there's something on here that can help me find my squad.' He thought with excitement._

But he suddenly remembered that he had no place on his helmet to place an audio recording. Audio recordings on ODST helmets had to be downloaded, much like he downloaded the maps to New Mombasa.

"Here, try using this." said the woman as she handed him an odd looking piece of technology.

It had the word ECHO engraved onto it and looked similar to devices used in the late 20th century, complete with large knobs and dials. He found an audio port on the side of the device and inserted the chip into it.

 _AUDIO CHIP INSERTED BEGINNING PLAYBACK_ flashed on the screen as the audio began to play.

The audio began with mostly static, but the voice of Buck could eventually be heard.

" _What the hell was that?"_ Buck began, _"Have you seen one of those before?"_

The movement of a rifle could be heard in the background.

" _Hey, Romeo, have your ears on?"_ Buck asked.

' _Why isn't he replying back?'_ the Rookie questioned.

" _Oh! Right! Permission to speak!"_ Buck exclaimed, adding a quick but quiet "Smartass" at the end

' _Oh, that's why'_ the Rookie thought, remembering the conversation between Romeo and Buck during the drop.

" _No, I haven't seen one of those before."_ Romeo began, _"But it was goin' to grease your ass good, just like it did to the Captain"_

The audio recording then had a long quiet pause before it began again.

" _Did you hear from Mickey, Dutch?"_ Buck asked Romeo.

" _Negative."_

" _The Rookie"_

Romeo didn't reply.

" _We need to get above this crap; link with the bee-net, one of our drones must've seen where they hit."_ Buck commanded.

" _We're poppin' smoke on the lady's mission? Did she ever tell you what she wanted?"_

Buck mumbles to himself before replying, _"Doesn't matter. All I care about now is getting my men out of this city; even you."_

 _PLAYBACK ENDED_ flashed on the device's screen.

"Who was the rookie guy that they were talking about?" asked the woman as the Rookie handed back the device; keeping the audio chip in one of the suit's pockets. He casually pointed to himself before dropping the helmet.

"How about I just call you Rook; since you won't even tell me your actual name anyway." the woman replied.

The Rookie shook his head in approval before noticing sirens going off in the street. Looking out the singular, rectangle window, a few digital signs had keep right displayed with arrows pointing to another bulkhead door. Readying his SMG, he and the woman turned and began to descend the building to head to the next beacon.

"My name's Lilith by the way." the woman said as they left.

* * *

 **Finally! This chapter is complete.**

 **Just a quick question, how descriptive should I be with the journey in the Mombasa Streets? I don't want to bore you to death, but I don't want to skip any important plot holes either. Let me know!**

 **Thanks for reading!**

 **RNG OUT!**


	7. Sanctuary

**Maya**

 **Leaving the Vault of the Warrior**

All Maya wanted, after the events of Hyperion, was to sit back and relax. She could tell that the rest of the Vault Hunters wanted the same. Axton didn't seem as chirpy and happy as he usually was. Salvador wasn't looking for something to shoot with his dual-wield Vladaf assault rifles. Zero wasn't even speaking in his weird way of haiku. Maya herself actually felt alone, even with all of her companions traveling beside her. She didn't understand this feeling completely, but eventually she will find out what it meant to her.

As the group approached the fast-travel station next to the Vault, Axton was the first to break the silence that had covered the group like a shroud.

"So, who's buying the first round?" He asked.

Salvador shook his head and said, "I spent most of my money on ammo and assault rifles, plus I bought drinks last time."

"Oh, right." Axton said sheepishly.

"It was for that bet right?" Maya asked?

"Yea." Salvador replied simply.

Maya stopped in front of the travel station as she tried to remember what the bet was. Finally clicking, a small grin spread across her face as she keyed the fast travel code for Sanctuary and initiated the fast travel. Salvador had bet Axton five shots that Zero couldn't insult Moxxi and be able to escape from her wrath, which was her simply shooting the culprit in the head, or any other body part that she could aim at the quickest.

So, Zero, Salvador, and Axton decided to launch the challenge a few days before the raid of Control Core Angel. The trio walked into the bar. Axton and Sal slipped into one of the booths to watch Zero from a distance, and to have a quick escape plan if things went pear-shaped. Zero stepped up to the bar and sat on the stool while ordering a drink. He did this with his visor though, as he would confuse Moxxi if he talked in haiku. She walked up to him with a drink, only to slap the drink way and flash something across his visor. She immediately grabbed on of the weapons she kept in under the bar to shoot Zero, but by then he was already gone. Axton laughed like a psycho as he watched Moxxi look around for Zero. When she caught a hold of Axton however, she shot at him a few times. Axton ran out the bar faster than Scooter could say "Catch a Ride". She never forgave Zero or Axton for the incident, but she still served them drinks whenever they came into her bar.

As the travel ended, they ended up inside Sanctuary's main square, if you could call it that. The main center of the floating town had one central turbine that helped hold Sanctuary in place above the highlands. A trashy street surrounded the turbine and there was, to the group's surprise, no one there; even though it was the middle of the day. The only exception to this was Claptrap, who wandered the street with a worried look etched on his small, box shaped chassis. Spotting the Vault Hunters, his expression immediately did a 180 back to his annoying self.

"HOLY CRAP!" he shouted. His voice seemed much louder than it actually was due to the fact that nobody was in town. "YOU GUYS MADE IT BACK ALIVE!"

Maya could hear Axton sigh as he came up with a reply.

"Yes Craptrap, we made it back." Axton heaved. Craptrap was a nickname for Claptrap that Axton said on rare occasions, and apparently this was one of those cases.

"Where is everyone?" Maya asked the annoying yellow robot.

"They all went hide in Marcus's gun shop, in case something bad happened." He replied with much enthusiasm.

"Did Mordy go with them?" she asked.

"No, he said that the town needed a much better person to watch the town rather than a stupid robot." Claptrap replied, with the latter part of the statement sounding like Claptrap mocking Mordecai. "He's still in the Crimson Raider's HQ with Brick if you guys want to meet them. I'm going to go get the civvies out of the gun shop before something bad happens." Claptrap concluded before hurrying down the street.

The Vault Hunters then jogged toward the HQ, which was nothing more than a simple two-story building that looked like a garbage can more than an HQ for the last stronghold of the fight against Hyperion. As they entered, a loud argument can be heard between Mordecai and Brick. The group couldn't understand what they were arguing about until they reached the second floor. As they entered the room, computer monitors were ripped from their roof anchors and scattered across the floor; exposed wires still pulsing electricity. The sofa looked unrecognizable due to it being ripped to shreds. Even the holo-projector that sat in the middle of the room looked a little dented out of shape. Brick had Mordecai in a choke-hold against the balcony that looked into the center of town. Maya immediately phase locked Brick away from Mordecai so that the group of Vault Hunters could get an explanation.

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!?" Maya exclaimed with fury.

The two looked at her and the recently arrived group of Vault Hunters, all elements of a fight emptied from there faces. However, Mordy had red eyes from what Maya assumed was crying. Mordecai then slowly walked over to the group with his ECHO device in his hand.

"Just got a transmission." Mordecai said miserably, "I'll let you listen to it."

He looked at the device in his hand, seeming hesitant to replay the log. But, even though he looked as if he didn't want to, he replayed the transmission.

 _HELP I'M BEING PULLED INTO THE VAULT! SEND AS MUCH HELP AS POSSIBLE!_

"That's it?" Axton asked.

"Yea," Brick replied. Mordecai looked as if he was going to have a nervous breakdown.

"It was received from Lilith about a half-hour ago. Mordy here hasn't been okay with the news himself."

The group sat in silence for what seemed like hours. Eventually, Maya broke the silence.

"What do we do?"

Mordy only looked up at the group, eyes filled with a deadly combination of fury, determination, and misery.

"We go after her." He said with a deadly tone.

* * *

 **Hey guys, thanks for waiting patiently for this chapter to come out. Sorry that it is so short, I just don't have the time to make chapters long like chapter 5 was. So, this brings me to my next order of business.**

 **So, hope you guys enjoyed. If you want to be in the Feet First Into Hell story as a main or background character, please let me know** **. I will give you more information then.**

 **RNG OUT!**


	8. Shaking Skyscrapers With No Foundation

**Hey guys! Thanks for waiting for this next chapter.**

 **The mood of the story will be different than last time, so be wary of that.**

 **I would like to thank everyone for reading this. It makes me feel good that people in 13 countries can view my work.**

 **Enjoy the chapter!**

 **Edited on 12/22/16. Fixed a few problems with plot progression and lore errors.**

* * *

 ** _Lilith  
_** ** _Somewhere in New Mombasa  
_** ** _A few hours after awakening_**

"What's the point of all of this anyway?" Lilith askd aloud. Rook did give her, from what she assumed was, a stern face of disapproval.

She thought that her question was one that needed answers though, as all she did after awakening in a dumpster on some foreign world was finding pieces of debris. Although she understood the fact that they held audio logs of some sort, they didn't give her a real insight of what exactly was going on.

They were walking down another one of the city's numerous streets, which looked almost exactly alike. She couldn't complain, however, as she knew that Pandora felt almost bland and boring to her as she spent time on the lawless planet. Added to the fact that the enemies would always charge at her yelling at the top of their lungs, shooting enough bullets to kill the Vault Warrior itself, only not one of them hitting her.

The enemies here, at least, had some strategy. The Runts would act similarly to the Psychos on Pandora; shooting blindly at their target. The only difference was that when their leader was killed, they would all loose hope and just tries to turn them into the alien equivalent of BBQ. The Gladiators had a bit more accuracy than their smaller counterparts, and seemed to be the alien's choice of sharpshooter. They even had excellent accuracy when it came down to it. The Apes, who seemed to be the lead warriors of the alien's, fought with pure rage and did plenty of damage to both Lilith and Rook. She liked to compare them to the Goliaths back on Pandora; as they seemed to rage when shot at with enough ammunition. There was one alien species in particular that was pretty much a walking tank of plasma; she found these the most fun and exhilarating to fight. She named these aliens in particular Goliaths, contrary to the Goliaths on Pandora; these aliens seemed to be the equivalent of a Badass Goliath as they were tough to kill. The only alien that she had seen so far that didn't try to kill her were these floating bags of gas. She couldn't find a better name for them as that's pretty much what they were. Their only purpose to the aliens was to give them upgraded shields to make them tougher to kill in combat. They seemed to be harmless creatures in nature, but Lilith had been past pissed to even care about checking to see if they were friendly or not.

Mainly she was ticked about being stuck on a stupid scavenger hunt in the middle of the night on some unknown world with a soldier that she didn't know, let alone trusting him/her with her life. But, there was another reason that she was mad, but she tried to hide it deep within the recesses of her mind and never tried to let it come to full thought. She knew that she might miss the funeral of Roland. She wanted to be there with her friends and comrades in arms. She wanted to say something, anything really, to Roland one last time. It was her duty to help run the Crimson Raiders along side Roland, now she had to do it with the help of Mordy and the other Vault Hunters, only if she made it out of this alive.

She stared at Rook as he looked like he was going to answer, but then she poured the rage on him. She wasn't even half aware of the words she said to him. However, deep in her heart, she wasn't mad at him, honestly.

As she raged on, his helmet dipped lower and lower in depression and sadness with a tinge of confusion. But at this point she didn't care about how he felt about her situation, she only cared about herself. That was her way of life and that's how she got things done. It was only about five minutes into the rant that she decided to stop.

Then, she stormed off without a word.

* * *

 ** _Rookie  
_** ** _Occupied City Center  
_** ** _6 hours after main combat drop  
_** ** _En route to Kikonwani Station_**

The Rookie didn't seem to understand what was going on. It had been quiet ever since they found the Tayari Plaza Beacon. They only had conversation they had were during battle situations, even then, she did most of the talking as he just replied with simple hand signals.

Then the rage hit him like a Covenant Super Carrier.

It all started with Lilith asking why they were even doing this. He gave her a stern look to remind her of the Covenant forces in the area that might be watching them. Then, she went off on him. Yelling at him with a full, loud voice that could probably be heard from here to the Outer Colonies. She kept ranting and ranting about a bunch of things that didn't really make too much sense to him; a planet named Pandora, her friends, and even himself. He was taken back a bit when she started calling him things such as "a stupid mute" or "coward". She also used a wide variety of language, which combined with the strength of each word, would crush any anti-UNSC organization on those words alone.

However, one subject she ranted about seemed to be personal to her, as if she didn't want anyone knowing about it. She began talking about a man named Roland. They seemed to be good friends and maybe had a relationship. But before she could continue on the topic, she decided to storm off into the streets of New Mombasa without him.

' _She's going to get herself killed!'_ He thought franticly.

He stared as she walked away, MA5C in hand, struggling to find a solution to the situation. On one hand, as he had past experience with women with huge tempers, messing with a girl that was pissed at the world wasn't exactly the thing to do, as she might just strangle you until you pass out or worse. Lilith looked as if she could do that with 5 times the intensity. On the other hand, as an experienced soldier, roaming around Covenant-held territory with no backup and no body armor, as she just had civilian clothing on, would guarantee disaster on a silver platter.

So, in attempt to save both himself and Lilith from certain death, he ran after her after shaking off the shock from the initial argument.

However, as he approached her and placed a hand on her shoulder, he instantly regretted it.

She turned to him with glowing red eyes that burned straight through his visor. She looked exactly like a demon straight out of his nightmares, or worse….."

Then she spoke, "LEAVE! ME! ALONE! "

He suddenly flew back with the power of a Scorpion Tank and into a nearby wall. He would've been fine with it, until she decided to shoot him with a few rounds of her MA5C Assault Rifle. The Rookie felt a few rounds pierce his left leg and a few on his left arm.

His suit's armor tried to compensate for the damage, but couldn't in time. He started to feel the darkness close in on him. He strained his eyes through the darkness to find Lilith running up to him at full sprint. Instead this time she had the same regular eyes that he found her with, deep with regret.

Then, as he fell into unconsciousness for the second time of the night, she could hear Lilith beginning to apologize with deep sorrow.

* * *

 **1 HOUR LATER**

' _Where am I?'_ The Rookie thought to himself as he awoke, _'Better question, how long was I out?'_

He struggled to raise his head and body to a point to where he can see his surroundings. Before he could, however, a gentle hand pressured against his chest.

"Stay, you need to heal a bit longer." Lilith's voice rang against the night.

He turned to find her with her arm glowing a soft purple hue. He assumed that was how he was able to regain consciousness within an hour. Usually, with an impact similar to the one he endured and with gunshot wounds to his arm and leg, he would be out for the better half of a month. But one question remained in his mind: How was she able to do that?

As if she read his mind she replied, "Before you try and ask, I am a Sire; a human with capabilities beyond anyone else."

The Rookie lowered his head back down onto the ground. A quick look around showed that he ended up near Kikowani Station, where he intended to go in the first place. He once again tried to get up, this time not being forced down by Lilith.

"You are one hard-headed bastard, aren't you?" she remarked.

As he got up, he shrugged away from Lilith due to the previous encounter.

"Look," she began, "I'm sorry for what happened back there. I just got fed up with being stuck in a place that I don't know all to well without my friends. Well, I guess you could be my friend, since you saved me from those aliens and gave me a weapon. But, I do miss my home, where I come from. And to top it all of, I just got out of captivity and lost someone very close to me. I want to ask you something: If I help you with whatever it is that you are trying to do, you must help me return to my home. Deal?"

The offer surprised the Rookie. He didn't expect her to open up to him like that, considering the fact that they have only been together for only a few hours. He considered the offer for a moment.

' _Seems like a fair trade to me'_ The Rookie thought to himself.

' _But, she might try to double-cross me or something, I don't want to end up like Georgia'_ The Rookie's mind countered while thinking back to the report of the missing ONI operative lost to deep space.

' _How would you end up like Georgia in this case?'_ The Rookie thought.

' _For all you know, she could probable launch your stupid ass into space and probably land on that Halo ring that the UNSC found a few weeks ago!'_ The Rookie's mind countered again.

Ignoring the outrageous counters in his mind, The Rookie nodded his head in agreement to Lilith's deal, seeing as it was a fair bargain.

"Good." she replied, "I also found some of that bio-foam stuff on one of the pillars here. It could be put to good use." Lilith handed a half-empty can of the medical gel to The Rookie. Looking at the bottle with a bit of disgust, he mounted the bottle on his belt for ease of use. As he did this action, his helmet's radio transponder cracked to life. He adjusted the volume of the transponder to allow Lilith to listen in as well.

' _This is Captain Veronica Dare, can anyone hear me?'_ the transmission started.

' _If anyone is listening, I'm in the Superintendent's Data Center under the city. I request immediate backup. Over.'_

A Covenant Phantom paused over the duo's position before switching on its searchlight and scurrying into the night.

"Looks like we better get underground before they do." Lilith said with determination as she readied her MA5C.

As the Rookie turned to look back at her, he noticed a smudge on his visor in the shape of a pair of lips. He quickly turned toward Lilith to find her giggling with a bit of blush on her face.

"Let's get going." Lilith replied between laughs.

* * *

 **I would like to thank you guys for reading my story. If you enjoyed, stay tuned for more to come. My new story drops on September 17** **th** **so be watching out for that.**

 **RNG OUT!**


	9. Warning

**Edited on 12/22/16. Changed minor problems and fixed plot line error.**

* * *

 **Lilith  
** **Underground Tunnels of New Mombasa  
** **Heading toward Superintendent's Data Center  
** **20 minutes after receiving Dare's transmission**

The room was quiet as she and Rook descended from the elevator shaft. In an instinct of past battles, she lifted her weapon, a MA5C Assault Rifle, and promptly scanned the room for hostiles. Her search came up empty-handed with only a few, scattered bodies or Runts, or other human soldiers.

She went over to one of the soldiers' corpses and looked at the gear that it possessed. The pouches had extra ammo for her assault rifle, along with more ammo for her shotgun that she found at the first beacon. Lilith then lifted an olive-green helmet off of the corpse and examined it with great curiosity. While it looked clean enough to be worn again, something about defiling a dead corpse just doesn't seem right.

But then again, she defiled many corpses for loot and money on Pandora countless times.

So, she placed the helmet on her head, cringing a bit as the helmet settled into place . The helmet seemed like a perfect fit, as if a supernatural force made the helmet of the now dead soldier be the exact size needed for Lilith.

She quickly turned around to notice Rook standing there, SMG in hand, with his head cocked to the side as if he were trying to figure out Lilith once again.

"What?" Lilith asked, "Never seen a girl loot a helmet from a corpse before?"

They stared at each other for a few seconds before Rook motioned to one of the doors in the room. The others were either blocked by an object or were locked down by whatever controlled them. The only exception to this was a single door that had bright green lights on it. The duo approached the door and watched with caution as it slid open. The two raised their weapons again to check for hostiles.

* * *

 **Maya**  
 **Sanctuary, Pandora**  
 **Crimson Raiders HQ**  
 **5 Hours after arrival in Sanctuary**

"What do we do now?" Axton asked with a worried look across his face.

The Vault Hunters along with Mordecai and Brick sat in the main room of the Crimson Raiders HQ for the past few hours arguing back and forth on the issue of Lilith's disappearance; only stopping to grab a few pizzas from Moxxi's or to stop another failed attack from what remains of Hyperion. Everyone in Sanctuary heard of the news and were in a worse state of sadness than when Roland was killed by Jack. Some have even resorted to rioting in the street, only to be stopped by Maya and the other Vault Hunters.

So far, the Vault Hunters haven't been able to come up with a solution to the problem. Axton suggested that they acquire a Hyperion ship and take it to the other planets in search of them. Zero didn't contribute to the conversation at all. Salvador suggested that they turn over every rock on Pandora to find them, thinking that the Vault teleported Lilith to another part of Pandora instead of another planet. Both suggestions were shot down by Mordecai due to the Vaults having powers far more than teleporting people, or other Vault Hunters, to other planets. Other than that, nobody even uttered a word.

"I think I have an idea." Maya said after waiting impatiently for another idea to arise. "Although you may not like the sound of it."

"I'll do with anything at this point." Mordecai said with a hint of exhaustion in his voice. "What's your idea."

"Well," Maya began, "Maybe I can attempt to control the Vault and figure out where it teleported Lilith."

"How are you going to do that though?" Mordecai questioned.

"Because I'm a Siren. Besides, Vaults can only be opened by Sirens anyway. " Maya responded.

"Well, I don't think that we're gonna get any other ideas." Axton said with a sigh, "Lets head back to the Vault and get this over with."

"Ok." Brick acknowledged with delight, "But whose coming with us."

"Axton, Zero, and Salvador can stay here and control the citizens from rioting and run the Crimson Raiders while Mordecai, Brick, and I return to the Vault." Maya commanded, "Also, we're gonna need all the eridium that we can gather. I'm going to need it to control the Vault. The home team will also need to gather eridium while we're gone too in case anything goes wrong."

"Alright team." Mordecai said, "Lets go get Lilith back."

* * *

 **Rookie**  
 **Underground Tunnels of New Mombasa (Sublevel 7)**  
 **Heading to Superintendent's Data Center**  
 **40 minutes after receiving Dare's Transmission**

"Fire in the hole!" Lilith exclaimed as she tossed a grenade down the corridor.

The Rookie watched as multiple Grunt bodies, and the screams that accompanied them, flew up in the air in a spectacular formation, only to fall down with a lifeless thud.

The duo rushed into the room and checked it for what seemed to be the 600th time. And once again, it was cleared due to the previous grenade.

"Clear!" Lilith shouted, her voice becoming hoarse from the constant yelling.

They stopped at the center of the room and observed their surroundings. The room had a selection of 4 doors with one being the one they entered in and another one being the only one open. The other two stood sealed tighter than an airlock. Along with the usual Covenant corpses on the ground and the weapons that accompanied them, there were often a few medical kits on the walls of each room and, as an added bonus, a few extra weapons that lay along side them. The Lilith and he had been in similar rooms like this for the past 10-20 minutes, looking for a way deeper into the tunnels to reach Dare, only to no avail.

"What do we do now?" Lilith asked, obviously tired from the extensive journey in the streets and in the tunnel system. Neither of them got any rest besides from the time that Lilith attended to the Rookie's wounds, and guess who didn't sleep.

The Rookie shrugged in confusion, holding his head as he did so. The biofoam was still holding, but it won't hold forever.

Then, as if on cue, a male voice rang out over the Rookie's radio, "Come on Super, unlock the keypad."

A robotic voice replied with, "Warning, construction ahead, expect delays."

"Hurry up Super, before the Covenant try to kill me!" The man shouted back.

"Warning, hitchhikers may be escaped convicts." the robot voice simply responded, much to the man's disappointment.

"What was that?" Lilith wondered, before rushing through the open door that led deeper into the tunnels.

' _What now?'_ The Rookie thought with slight annoyance and chased after her.

Eventually, after catching up with Lilith, the Rookie saw the owner of the voice from earlier. It belonged to a NMPD officer that must have been trapped in the tunnels for some time. The officer looked a bit taller than usual officers that the Rookie encountered, but looked no different otherwise. The officer sported a navy blue shirt with a grey armor covering the shirt. The officer also wore a grey helmet with a bronze visor, thus hiding the face from gunfire. A M90 shotgun was cradled by the officer as the duo approached.

"Who are you?" Lilith asked, raising her MA5C in response.

"Oh, I'm Officer Harold Jackson." The officer replied with much relief, "I was just trying to get down to the lower levels of the tunnels to check on my squad, I tried contacting them over the radio, but I couldn't get a response. I was hoping that you could help me get to them."

The Rookie and Lilith gazed at each other with looks of confusion. Lilith still seemed tense, as if she didn't buy the officer's story, but there was no reason to kill him either. He didn't try to kill them, or at least yet; being down in the tunnels like the officer described with no backup would turn someone insane. But, then again, they knew nothing about him other than his name and his purpose.

' _We could use the extra man. These tunnels could be crawling with Covenant."'_ The Rookie thought while trying to stay positive.

The Rookie moved his hand and placed it on Lilith's MA5C, her head swinging to meet his gaze.

"You seriously trust this guy?" Lilith asked with a stern tone, while keeping it low to avoid the officer hearing them.

He nodded his head _yes_ and turned back to the officer before Lilith could retaliate.

"Hey, can one of you help me this hatch open so that I can check on my squad?" Jackson replied with haste.

The Rookie approached the keypad for the hatch control. It glowed a concerning red before turning into a greenish blue as he came close; accompanied by a _Bleep_ and a confirmation from the robotic voice.

He could here the officer snicker in the background, "I guess you have the magic touch." obviously jealous of the Rookie's seemingly easy access of the keypad while Harold couldn't open it even by force; a few pellet holes on the exterior of the hatch justified the claim.

"Let's just go." Lilith groaned as she jumped down the hatch.

* * *

 **1 hour later  
Sublevel 9**

"Three hostiles, look like Brutes. I think that one of them is a chieftain." Jackson noted quietly; making sure to keep his voice low enough to conceal the group's position.

The Rookie gazed ahead down the wide corridor. Frost stuck to the walls and floor like a shroud. Apparently, from the information gathered from the audio logs given to him by the Superintendent, the lower levels of the tunnels were flooded with argon as a failsafe to prevent fires from spreading; at least that was the official story. In fact, the argon gas was used to kill a scientist studying a Covenant Engineer that had infiltrated the Superintendent's data facility.

Hoping to move his mind off of the subject, The Rookie turned to his left to face Lilith. A few speckles of ice were forming on her cheeks, but were barely noticeable.

"Let me take on the big one." Lilith began, "You guys take out the weaker foes."

"I like the sound of that plan." Harold commented, "My armor isn't enough to take on a freakin' chieftain."

"Ok, give me a few seconds to make up a distraction before you two go charging in like a bunch of stampeding cows." Lilith continued.

"How are you gonna do that though?" Harold questioned.

At this point, not even bothering to give a reply, Lilith vanished in a flash of purple.

"Where the hell did she go?!" Harold asked with panic.

The Rookie remained calm. He was used to this level of scary sorcery (or Siren powers as she called it). Somewhere in his mind, he knew that the teleportation scheme was very basic compared to what she could actually do, remembering back to the streets when she knocked him unconscious. Lilith tried to explain her powers to The Rookie before, but it didn't make a whole lot of sense to him. Using a metal called… He struggled to remember the name. His brain reminded him that he had more urgent matters to attend to at the moment.

A flurry of plasma bolts pelted against the walls of the corridor ahead.

' _Lilith must have begun the distraction'_ The Rookie thought.

He turned and patted Harold on the shoulder and pointed down the frozen corridor. Harold silently acknowledged his command and snuck, shotgun in hand, down one edge towards the brutes while the Rookie stuck to the other with his M7S. He found one of the brutes and placed its figure into the bright red reticule of the SMG. He glanced over to find Harold sneaking up on the other low-ranking brute.

Quickly refocusing his attention, The Rookie took aim at center mass and let loose a barrage of silent _clacks_ as the gun unleashed bullets into the Brute's pelts. It turned it's attention toward The Rookie and bellowed in rage, raising a Spiker to counter the soldier's attacks. A few spikes shot out in The Rookie's general direction, although the accuracy of the shot made the spikes very easy to dodge with a simple roll.

Another barrage of bullets from the SMG made the brute more angry than ever and made the beast drop his weapon and charge him.

' _Not good!'_ Rookie's mind screamed.

Usually, when a brute decides to charge you, it means that it's very pissed off. However, being charged by a brute and holding a rather weak SMG, your basically, for a lack of a better term, fucked.

However, a loud blast came from behind the brute and made it stagger, thus making it loose it's balance and it's momentum for the charge. A second blast dropped the brute to the floor. Harold stood behind where the brute previously was, shotgun smoking and ready to kill more.

"That was kickass!" Harold exclaimed with much joy, "Good thing I remembered to grab this bad boy!" Harold then proceeded to cradle the M90 like a small child.

"Uh… Should I come back at a better time?" A female voice piped up from behind.

Harold turned to find Lilith staring blankly at him, with a brute chieftain corpse hanging heavily over her shoulder.

"No, let's keep going." Harold quickly replied, putting the shotgun back into a relaxed position in his arms as Lilith dropped the chieftain.

As the trio proceeded down the corridor, they came across a 4-way intersection. One passage had the continuation of the corridor, while the other two had locked doors at each end.

"Oh! This is my stop." Harold suddenly piped up, his voice changing from confidence to nervousness.

"In the middle of a frozen hallway?" Lilith questioned, an eyebrow shot up in suspicion.

"Yea, this is where my squad was. Well, not in the corridor, but in one of those doors." Harold sheepishly replied.

"You sure you don't want to stay with us?" Lilith pushed.

"NO! I mean you both might have something more important to do. So why drag little ol' me around. It'll just slow you down."

"Alright, it's your funeral." Lilith replied as if she didn't care much about whether he came or not.

Then the two trudged on without Harold through a set of doors that, thankfully, led to an unfrozen corridor. Even in the ODST suit, The Rookie was still getting a bit chilly in that corridor. Suddenly, his radio transponder crackled to life for the first time since he came underground.

" _Buck?"_ Dare's voice crackled over the radio.

" _Sorry about not letting you know about the mission, about everything. It's just that, ONI wouldn't let me tell you about it. You get the deal."_

The transmission ended with that. At this point, Lilith and he approached a sealed white door with a red glow, indicating that the door was locked. Lilith reached out to knock on it when the Rookie grabbed her hand.

She gave him a dirty look, "What, you think that knocking on a door is only fit for soldiers or something?"

It wasn't. However, the only reason that he didn't want Lilith knocking on the door was that if Dare happened to be on the other side, Dare would think that Lilith was a hostile and kill her instantly, or spark and enraged firefight.

He kept his gaze on Lilith until she stepped back. The Rookie couldn't read minds, but the look on her face showed that she didn't like the idea. He then turned to the door and, after being hesitant, knocked on the door with a hard _POUND_. The door slid open to a blond-haired woman holding a M6 SOCOM to the Rookie's head.

"Oh, it's you." She began, lowering her pistol in the process, "What was your name again?"

He never got to answer as a few shuffles and alien voices could be heard down the corridor.

"Inside. Now." Dare commanded.

The Rookie pulled Lilith by her arm and threw her into the room and followed her into the room. Dare shut and locked the door.

Then Dare raised her pistol at Lilith.

"Who's this?" Dare questioned, keeping her pistol trained on Lilith's head.

"Go ahead, shoot me. I dare you." Lilith challenged.

Before Dare could do anything else, the Rookie stepped in and lowered her hand the same way he lowered Lilith's a few moments ago: fast and swiftly.

"What are you doing?"

He gazed back at Dare. He then pointed a finger at Lilith, then made a finger gun while pretending to shoot it, and nodded his head as if to say "No".

Dare gave him a questioning look, and then placed her gun on her holster. She didn't like the idea however.

"I'm trying to get into the Superintendent's Data Center to carry out our real mission. However, the only way in from here is right through a hive of Drones. To make things worse, some idiots blew up the building at the top of the shaft. Woke the whole damn hive. So, I've been stuck here, waiting for back up. I guess you two are it."

She turned toward a door at the other end of the door and shoved it open.

"Let's see what you got."

* * *

 **10 minutes later  
Near entrance of Superintendent's Data Center**

"We're here. Looks like some Brutes are trying to get through the door. We need to take them down, now!" Dare commanded as the trio entered the final stretch leading up to the data center.

Three Brutes stood at the entrance to the data center trying to open it's door by force. Two of them were firing Spikers while a third one, wielding a Gravity Hammer, shouted at the door.

The Rookie picked up on the yelling as he, Lilith and Dare approached the door.

"Open this door TRAITOR!" the brute yelled.

"KEEP IT CLEAN! RESPECT GOVERNMENT PROPERTY!" The Superintendent's voice perked.

The trio came in from behind the brutes with Lilith taking on the brute with the Gravity Hammer, while Dare and the Rookie went behind the other two enemies.

Like in the Rookie's previous engagement with brutes, Lilith began the attack first. This time, she seemed to lock the lead brute in mid-air, suspended above his comrades. She unloaded her MA5C into the brute's hide, tearing through it's hide and shattering it's spine. It appears that Lilith's trick also disabled the brute's shielding. The brute then fell to the ground with a loud _THUD_ . The two brute minors gazed in horror as their comrade lay dead on the ground. The Rookie and Dare took this opportunity for unload their clips into their respective targets. They too fell to the ground.

"Well. That was easy." Lilith commented.

"Come on. We still have an objective to complete." Dare explained.

The team quickly approached the entrance to the data center. Spikes covered some of the wall and even the door to the data center.

"ACCESS GRANTED." The Superintendent chirped as the door opened.

"Move slow and steady. We don't want to frighten it. Safeties on. Lilith, you stay on guard duty. I have a feeling that you would be more suited for the job." Dare commanded.

"Yea, I could use a few minutes to myself anyway." Lilith commented, not having much joy in the statement.

"Come on Rookie." Dare said as she practically dove through the door not wasting any time.

The Rookie followed her into the data center, being careful not to run to quickly. He hesitated as he passed through what appeared to be a scanner, he pressed on anyway. Finally the duo approached the final door that led to the data center itself. The door slid open as the Rookie approached; making a slight _hiss_ as it did. The room was haunted with a looming darkness that was only disturbed by the lights of several servers and the flashlight from Dare's pistol.

Placing the pistol down on the ground, the flashlight gave more light to the rest of the room. The room seemed to be quiet, as if there was nobody in the room including themselves.

' _Where was this traitor that the brutes spoke of?'_ The Rookie questioned, thinking back to the earlier banter of the brute.

As if on que, a sound that mostly resembled a gurgle rang through the chamber. The Rookie, on instinct, raises his weapon as he scans for movement. He caught something moving off to his right: a Covenant Engineer. He aimed his weapon at it to neutralize the threat, but was told not to shoot by Dare.

She waited until the Engineer floated closer before she spoke, "We've seen these creatures before on the field but not this close. ONI calls these creatures 'Engineers'. I think that this one took the data that was stored by the Superintendent and combined it with its own. Everything we want to know on the Covenant is right here."

An alarm started to blare in one corner of the room. The Engineer floated toward the noise and tinkered with a small camera screen. The screen focused toward where the trio first entered. This time, however, a lone ODST trooper is seen walking toward the center. The trooper's armor is covered with drone blood and bits of drone wing. The Rookie could only find one ODST that would be stupid and or brave enough to venture all the way here: Buck.

"Buck!" Dare called out over the her radio transponder.

"Veronica? Where the hell are you?" Buck called out. His figure searched the room frantically on the camera.

"Data center, but we're coming out." Dare answered.

"We?"

"I'll explain later, but do not, I repeat, do not shoot anything pink."

"Ok just come on!"

The camera shut off and Dare turned to the Engineer, "You, stay with me. Ok?"

The Engineer chirped brightly. Dare turns toward the Rookie and nods to proceed out the door.

"Let's go."

* * *

 **Maya**  
 **Vault of the Warrior, Pandora**  
 **2 hours after leaving Sanctuary**

"Here we are! The Vault of the Lava Monster!" Brick exclaimed as they approached a group of vending machines.

Maya's legs were about to give up on life. Since the fast travel machines never transport anyone close to the Vault, they had to walk all the way through Hyperion's mining base that was set up during the reign of Handsome Jack. However, there was a fast travel machine next to the Vault, it is an one-way transporter, meaning that it can only transport people away from the location. To add to the equation, many Hyperion loader bots and engineers were still left in the before mentioned base.

"Can we take a rest, I can't stand being this tired." Mordecai complained.

" We need to push on; we don't have time for sleep. Look, the Vault arch is up ahead." Maya adds, hoping to change the subject.

Deciding to make things progress faster, Maya rushed through the molten landscape over to the arch. A faint purple glow could still be seen curling around the arch. Maya places her hand on the arch, hoping that her Siren powers could control the Vault. Thankfully, she was able to connect with the arch and, to her shock, find out that Lilith was teleported to a different dimension. She disbelieved this idea. It seemed physically impossible for something like this to occur. Although, this was Eridian tech she was dealing with, so anything was possible.

"So, what's up doc?" Mordecai asked.

"It seems like Lilith was transported to a different dimension. I know that it sounds weird, but that looks to be what we're dealing with." Maya explained.

Mordecai mulled over the information that Maya explained. Then, a laugh crackles from Mordecai's lips. It slightly agitated Maya; with the fact that Lilith was gone along with Roland being killed by Handsome Jack all happening within a single week. She was about to punch him off the face of Pandora, but she shrugged off the idea.

"Alright enough with the jokes. What's up doc?" Mordecai tried again.

She didn't reply due to Brick called Maya over.

"Hey, didn't Handsome Jack die right here?" Brick questions.

"Yea. Why?" Maya answers.

"Well, his corpse isn't here."

"What do you mean?"

Brick didn't answer. However, he was right. Jack's corpse was absent from it's previous position.

"Oh. Crap." Maya said with some shock.

"What's wrong with that?" Brick asked.

"If Jack isn't here, then does that mean…" Maya began but didn't finish. The idea sounded impossible and dark in her head.

She didn't find the energy or stomach to even spark the idea.

* * *

 **Lilith**  
 **On elevator heading toward surface of New Mombasa**

"Well that was a shit show." Lilith commented as the group entered the elevator.

Everyone was tired from the battle that they fought through to get the bag of gas to safety from the alien enemies.

The elevator doors closed as one of the soldiers took off his helmet; revealing a young, somewhat handsome face. She could argue that this guy looked better than any of the guys on Pandora, even more so than Roland's. However, she had other things to worry over at the moment, as a sudden stench overwhelmed the elevator.

"Good lord that thing stinks." the soldier named Buck began, "It kinda reminds me of my-"

Buck was interrupted by Dare as she punched him square in the face. Lilith was prompt to bet on who would win a possible upcoming fight.

"What was that for?" Buck complained.

"For abandoning the mission." Dare spat back.

"You didn't even telling me about the mission, my squad was scattered-"

Dare interrupted Buck's rant as she ran up to him and kissed him for a few seconds. They broke off and both seemed in a daze.

"And that?" Buck asked, his tone calmed by the previous kiss.

"For coming back." Dare whispered.

"Awkward!" Lilith whispered to the Rookie.

The two then realized that there were three other sentient forms in the elevator.

"Oh! Uh… good work Rookie." Buck perked up, hoping to change tone, "But we're not out of this yet."

The elevator opened up to find a familiar figure: Harold Jackson.

"Harold, what are you doing here?" Lilith asked.

"Oh, you know why." Harold said with an evil tone.

He then fired a stun gun at Dare, Buck, and the Rookie, leaving Lilith and the Engineer alone in the elevator.

"What was that for?!" Lilith yelled, shocked at Harold's actions.

He stood still, as if he were waiting for something. Then, he took off his helmet, earning a gasp from Lilith at the face under the helmet: Handsome Jack. Jack surged forward, taking Lilith by the throat, sedating her, and leaving the others for dead.

* * *

 **Whew! That was a long one. Sorry for the wait. It took me a bit for this one (it covers 15 or so pages in my Word document editor). I'm sorry to report that I may have to alter my schedule of updates once again, as I think that I may have to make these updates irregular. Anyways, a couple of new polls are up on my profile if you want to vote in them.**

 **RNG OUT!**


	10. Finale

_**Ch.9 Finale  
**_

 **The Rookie  
** **Elevator Shaft to Superintendent Data Center  
** **Sunrise**

The Rookie rose to his feet at a slow pace, the burn that the stun shot had caused still burning into his chest. He briefly wondered how the hell the shot pierced his armor, but looking at his teammates made him tend to their wounds first.

First dropping next to Buck, the Rookie reached into his suit's storage compartment, pulling out a syringe of adrenaline. He then found a place along Buck's neck where he can inject the medication, and stabbed it into the flesh.

Buck jumped with a start before the Rookie can finish depleting the syringe, scanning the area with quick, jerking movements. His eyes darted back and forth across the elevator interior that he lay in. After a few moments of panicked breathing and searching, he then focused his mind and his eyes on the Rookie.

"What's going on? Where are we?" Buck began to ask the silent soldier.

The Rookie paused for a moment to recollect the past few moments that he could remember. He remembered standing next to Lilith, the mysterious woman he found after he escaped his pod. He also remembered the NMPD officer, Henry, they found in the tunnels standing in front of them, acting a bit strange. He stood a little too tall and stiff for his liking. He should've known that the bastard would silence him and his squad and…

Wait, where was Lilith?

It was the Rookie's turn to panic, he twisted left and right to scan the elevator once more, only to find nothing more than Dare lying on the floor not to far from him.

' _That jackass must've taken the engineer, Virgil, too. Unless it wandered off while we were out'_ He thought silently.

It wasn't the engineer that was on his priority list, unfortunately. It didn't matter if it was the whole reason why his squad was deployed to this city. Only one person stood at the top of that list: Lilith.

He tossed a few more bottles of various medicines including adrenaline, biofoam, and anti-burn cream. Then, he turned to the short hallway that led to an unlocked door.

"Hey!" Buck half-yelled at the Rookie, "where do you think you are going'?"

The Rookie stopped in his tracks and turned to his squad-leader, and surprised him with something he rarely did: He spoke.

"I'm going to go look for her, and find the engineer." The Rookie told Buck in a hoarse voice. "Keep Dare safe, I'll find you when I'm done."

Then he set off.

* * *

 **Maya  
** **Vault of the Warrior, Pandora  
** **2 hours and 30 minutes after leaving Sanctuary**

"So, we have our plan?" Maya questioned the group.

The trio of Vault Hunters stood in a loose circle debating on what to do after finding out the situation with Handsome Jack and the part about where the Vault transported Lilith. They decided to leave one of their own behind to defend the entrance to the Vault. The debate about who will stay, however, was the topic that stopped any progress. Maya knew that she could not stay at the Vault because she would be needed to activate it to escape from wherever they emerged. That left the choice between the sniper and the brawler.

Maya thought for a minute between her choices. Mordecai was good with sniping things from afar while keeping a somewhat low profile. He won't be too much use in close quarters however; something that Brick specialized in. If they were to end up in close quarters, Brick would be the better choice. In addition, Mordecai could easily hide somewhere near the Vault entrance to allow a simple defense.

In the end, Maya decided to allow Brick to follow her into the Vault.

"I still think that I should go, but whatever floats your boat I guess." Mordecai moaned before trotting off to find a cliff to set up camp.

Maya turned to the brawler, "You ready to kick some ass?"

He slammed his fists together, "Hell yea, let's go."

The two turned toward the arch and sprinted toward it with no turning back. As they got within 20 feet or so, the portal began to form and glow a brilliant purple. With one side-glance from Maya as the duo approached, they entered the portal.

* * *

 **The Rookie  
** **Streets of New Mombasa  
** **5 minutes after leaving Buck and Dare**

The Rookie scanned the street up and down, aiming his M7S at anything that moved in case of traps. The person that took Lilith could have set traps to prevent anyone from rescuing Lilith.

' _Hell, he could've convinced the Covenant to side with him'_ he thought humorously. After what previously happened, anything could happen. His thoughts ranged from as minor as all of this being a hallucination the harshness of the Flood attacking the planet.

He changed his thoughts as he walked, he thought back to Harold. What did he want with Lilith; he was a simple police officer. Ok, so Lilith's little stunt in the tunnels might have caught his attention, but the Rookie doubted that Harold would go to the lengths of capturing a woman with mythical powers…

Wait a minute, what did Lilith tell him about the enemies she had back wherever she came from.

During their fight on the midnight streets, Lilith told him about an evil man named Handsome Jack, or something like that. He ran a corporation that tried repeatedly to kill her and her friends. He thought back to Harold again, his initials were HJ, same as this Handsome Jack.

He began to run faster, if that monster had Lilith, who knows what might happen to her. His legs pounded against the metal pavement of New Mombasa. He steadied his breathing and paced himself. He skidded around a corner to find himself slam the brakes.

He gazed at two mysterious figures standing in the distance. One of them was a large, male figure, possibly a brawler of some sort. The other was a small, female figure. He did notice that the small woman stood close to the big man's side. Her left arm had some of the same tattoos that Lilith had on her arm. This woman also had a yellow-black skin suit and cool blue hair. She had a strange weapon trained on the Rookie.

"Freeze!" the female commanded.

The Rookie stood still for a moment to contemplate over his options:

1\. Shoot the two figures.

2\. Be peaceful with them.

3\. Run and hope to find another way to Lilith.

The Rookie immediately shook the idea of shooting them out of his mind; this would only make matters worse, especially with the brawler. The third option was a choice that he took into consideration. Nevertheless, then again, he didn't know the capabilities of the two figures. So running might be a sign of hostility. He ended up clicking the safety on his SMG, and raising this weapon and free hand into the air. He stood still and awaited their response.

"On your knees!" was the next command, and the Rookie followed this to the letter.

He watched as the two approached. They both looked at him with stricken gazes. However, the Rookie wasn't prepared for what happened next.

The large, muscled dude grabbed him by the neck and scream into his face, "WHERE IS LILITH YOU SACK OF-". He didn't get to finish as the Rookie was immediately ripped from his grip into a purple, glowing bubble of some sort. He kina enjoyed the feeling of being suspended into the air after so much running. It was weird, but true.

"Sorry about my friend here, he can be a little inconsiderate," the female cooed. Her eyes seemed to calm the Rookie, something that bothered him very much.

' _I wonder if they'll let me help them find Lilith…'_ he thought.

"Hey, you're looking for Lilith too?" the Rookie started.

Both of their faces went a little tighter and brighter, "Yes." they both answered at the same time.

"I was the last one to see her, as comfortable as this may be, I don't think it's the best idea for me to give information through a glowing bubble."

The brawler and the woman gazed at each other before the bubble suddenly disappeared around the Rookie, who fell to the ground with a _THUD!_

After gathering his bearings, the Rookie told the story of how he met Lilith, their adventures in the city, although he hesitated at the part when Lilith knocked him unconscious, and how Lilith was taken by what he believed to be Handsome Jack. After telling the entire tale, the two mysterious people before him said nothing and stood more still than a statue while they took in the information that was shared.

The brawler spoke first, "What are we waiting for, let's go get this fool!"

"I'm coming with you," said the Rookie.

"Fine, but don't make me have to kill you." the female responded.

A sudden spark of static burst over the Rookie's suit radio. He wasn't surprised as this was a constant situation that he was used to in his time in the UNSC. It lasted for a few seconds. As he glanced at the two mysterious people in front of him, they also seemed to be hearing the static as they had a hand to their right ear.

"Hello there, bandits!" an all too familiar voice aired over the comms. "I was just waiting to see how this would turn out. If you really feel like killing me for the second time, you murdering psychopaths, then meet me at the Uplift Reserve entrance. Just you three, nobody else! I have something in store for everyone. For the soldier, I have his sag of gas and his crush! Moreover, for the Vault Hunters, I have their friend. Come if you dare…."

The three stood idle for a minute, absorbing the information that had been given to them by their worst enemy. No one said a word, until the brawler decided to make the first comment.

"Don't tell me you have a crush on Lilith," he groaned.

"I don't!" the Rookie retaliated. "Ok maybe…"

"Ugh, let's just go already." the female complained.

"Wait, before we do, I have an idea." the Rookie called out.

"What is it?" she questioned.

"Maybe I can improve the odds of us beating that douchbag."

She stood still for a few seconds, pondering how he might be able to help improve the odds.

"Ok, I'll bite. How?"

"Just let me make a phone call." he simply replied.

* * *

 **Lilith  
** **Unknown location**

' _Where am I?'_

Lilith opened her eyes to find herself in a makeshift, but well made, prison cell. It looked to be made in a park of some sort. She did have to admit, for being thrown into a different dimension, Handsome Jack knew how to be creative. The cell was made out of welded material probably taken from the cars and pieces of debris around the city.

"Well, well, well. Look who's up." a voice projected over a pair of speakers.

' _Well, shit. Handsome Jack decides to bug me again.'_

"I won't answer to any of your demands you monster!" she exclaimed at the body-less voice.

"Oh, but you will, my dear. And those little pathetic friends of yours, even that little silent soldier of yours. By the way, is he going to replace Roland in your love life? If so then that could've been predicted from a mile away." Jack sneered.

Lilith slammed her fist into one of the reinforced walls of the cell. _'He ISN'T who I love. Besides he's not even my type'_ she screamed in her head, _'is he….'_

She darted her mind from that into trying to activate her Siren abilities, to no avail.

"Yea, you don't want to try that either. It won't work either way." Jack warned.

Lilith was now stumped. She couldn't activate her Siren powers, she couldn't crack the door or wall, she had no weapons, or even nova shields for Christ sake!

She hoped that somebody was coming for her, because all she could do was wait.

* * *

 **Maya  
** **Coastal Highway, near Uplift Reserve  
** **90 Minutes Later**

The trio of warriors sat outside of a makeshift fortress wall made by none other than Handsome Jack. Maya was somewhat grateful for the lack of the Hyperion symbol that was usually plastered on everything owned by Jack, which was a lot. However, she was worried somewhat. For one thing, Jack could've found some superior firepower and shields that might out power her own defenses.

' _At least, we can probably loot them later'_ her greedy side of her mind exclaimed.

Another thing that bothered her was the possibility that this little plan that the newcomer cooked up wouldn't work. She thought it over one more time. He plotted to use a gunship, a Phantom they called it, to help them defeat Handsome Jack, but only if we started to get seriously hurt. She saw his intention, to allow him to be unprepared for a counter-attack, but thought that the gunship should come in as they stormed Jack's location.

' _I guess there's no second-guessing our plan now.'_ she reasoned.

She turned to find the newcomer talking into his comms system.

"Hey, what kind of defenses are there?" she asked.

"Hey Romeo, what can you see?" he spoke into the built-in microphone.

"I don't see anything from here, buddy. Just a bunch of busted robots of some kind." a voice, apparently Romeo, replied.

' _Loaders. How did he build those on his own?' she thought_ ferociously.

"Alright, be ready with that air support," said the newcomer.

"We're good to go?" Maya asked.

"Yea, let's go save Lilith." the soldier answered.

"BRICK!" she commanded, "KICK DOWN THE DOOR!"

"ALRIGHT! LET'S DO THISS!" Brick exclaimed with much excitement as he charged into the crude base of Handsome Jack.

The door in question was a metal barrier that covered an exit ramp big enough to fit two of Marcus's buses side by side. A few loader bots guarded the interior of the door, but had no chance.

Maya and the newcomer followed slightly behind Brick as he smashed the rudimentary attempts at recreating the loader bots by hand. Most of the bots had spinning blades and large plows instead of the usual energy blasters and exploding power cells. This made it somewhat difficult for Maya to gun down the bots, but they eventually fell.

They now stood in a courtyard of some sort. It had plenty of places that provided cover for the three, while allowing decent lines of sight for ranged weaponry. A few corpses of squat, orange aliens littered the ground along with the now dead loaders and some ballistic weapons in various crates. There were even a couple of turrets perched on a nearby balcony.

Handsome Jack was nowhere to be found.

"COME ON JACK! WERE READY! TAKE! ME! ON!" Brick raged as he frantically searched for the merciless son of a gun.

"Oh, you were looking for me? I'll be down in just a minute." Jack called from their ECHO devices. "But first, meet my pet monkeys."

On cue, a set of force fields sprung up, blocking their escape route. All around the courtyard, various ape-like creatures began to flood in. They reminded Maya of bullymongs in a sort of weird way.

"Shit, brutes!" the newcomer yelled, obviously not happy with their appearance.

They charged from all sides. Some had weapons that shot balls of plasma at them in rapid succession, while others fired weapons that launched larger balls of green death at them.

The newcomer and she formed a small perimeter to keep the aliens at bay. Maya fired at the creatures with her DAHL-made SMG, while she could see Brick plowing through the horde with nothing more than his fists.

' _They just keep coming!'_

"We should call in air support!" Maya exclaimed over the gunfire.

"No, we wait until we face Jack. Calling it now would blow our plan." he replied.

So they fought, one ape after another, they fell until the dead corpses piled up to Maya's waist. She thought that the fight was in their favor, until the dreaded sound of _clikety-click-click_ piped up from her SMG; she was out of ammo.

"Crap, I'm out." she complained.

"See if you can head toward the entrance, there should be some weapons in there you can use. While we do, take this." the newcomer suggested as he threw her his weapon, and switched to a pistol.

She caught the weapon in mid-air and analyzed it quickly: it had a decently sized magazine along with glow sights and a silencer.

' _I hope that this thing is effective'_ Maya whished as she began her push to one of the crates.

Surprisingly, it took care of the beasts with relative ease. Once more, the bodies fell to the ground, in addition to the various roars and grunts barely being heard as their last dying breath wer overshadowed by gunfire. They finally reached the crates to find more weapons like the one she held. Some had weapons that she believed to be were shotguns while others were longer rifles.

The two held out against the onslaught that was the ape horde. The once decent courtyard was now a mass grave for the apes.

"Ok Jack, we met your pets. Now would you care to join us?" Maya called out.

A small rumbling was heard before a bright flash flared from the center of the area. As the light cleared, a lone figure stood in all of his evil glory: Handsome Jack.

"I'm here now," he said quietly before engaging the Vault Hunters.

* * *

 **Lilith  
** **Holding Cell**

Lilith sat on the cold hard floor of the cell, waiting for a new sound or sight to amuse her. She counted the pieces of metal on the wall a hundred times over. She even thought about counting the particles of dust, but decided against it until she lost her sanity. She couldn't understand what made her tick about this particular cell. She had been captured before, back when they assaulted Control Core Angel, but she wasn't as insane as this.

Her thoughts were suddenly broken by the sounds of explosions and gunfire. She stood up and walked to the door, amazed by the sound. Not because it was the most interesting thing she heard in the past week, but it was familiar: a DAHL SMG. Lilith knew only one person that used those, Maya. She sighed with relief that she was going to be saved from this hellhole of a prison.

"Don't get too riled up, my dear." Jack called from a speaker. "I'm about to go and deal with these fools. And when I return, I will harness the true power that is within you. Oh, and to make sure that you won't escape, I'm locking this place down and sealing all of the doors."

As he finished, a slab of metal slid down and covered the door. Now without a way to tell if she was going to be rescued, she smashed the door repeatedly, feeling the rage pipe up from within her. She had been truly cut off from everything that she knew and loved: her friends, Roland, hell she would even take the silent soldier at this point.

Her prayers were answered when a small purr could be heard from the other side of the sealed door. Lilith, curious in its nature, stepped closer. Pressing her ear to the surface, she could still hear the constant purr, but can also hear _bleeps_ and _bloops_ from what she assumed was a tech-pad. She backed up from the door as she heard the door's lock _click._

The door opened to reveal the "Engineer" that the silent soldier's squad was looking for: Virgil.

"Hey buddy. What are you doing?" Lilith soothed to the alien.

The alien purred in response, and then nudged its head toward a corridor that, for all Lilith knew, led to the outside world.

"Ok, let's go."

* * *

 **The Rookie**

"He's flanking!" the Rookie called out to the others.

"He's got to be weak by now!" the female, Maya, called out.

"Yea, what gives?" the brawler, Brick, agreed.

The trio of warriors have been fighting the foe for what seemed like days. It was even taking its toll on them; the brawler wasn't as menacing and strong with his attacks, and the female wasn't as accurate with her shots. Even he couldn't focus as much on his shots; causing many bullets missing their mark. This meant that Jack's peashooter of a weapon actually began to do some damage to them all. The brawler had to be pulled up a few times after receiving too much fire.

"Alright, that's it!" the Rookie commanded, "Buck, bring in the firepower. Romeo, get a shot lined up ASAP!"

"On it Rookie!" they both replied.

"Air support is on the way. Sit tight guys," the Rookie told the others.

They continued to fight, minute after minute. Both sides making sure that each shot and strike found its mark; though it became more difficult to do so as time wore on. The Rookie was relieved to hear the drop-ship hum over the sound of gunfire.

"Alright Romeo, light him up!" Buck commanded the sniper.

"Lining up the shot…"

Jack still didn't notice the gunship, which the Rookie hoped would stay that way.

"….firing!" exclaimed Romeo.

A loud boom pierced through the enraging battle and managed to land a shot directly on Jack's kneecap, thus rendering him unable to maneuver as much.

"Firing again!"

A second boom signaled the next shot, which landed on Jack's right arm. Jack fell to the ground with a _THUMP_ and a loud cry of agony. Everyone held their fire and surrounded the monster. The Phantom landed in an open area of the courtyard.

"Where's Lilith you bastard." the brawler growled.

Jack did nothing more than let out a soft laugh, "Oh, you thought it would be that easy now would you."

He suddenly pulled a gun from his coat and fired twice, both bullets hitting the brawler and the female respectively.

"NO!" the Rookie shouted.

"You are going to let me leave, with Lilith in my care, and will not mess with me again. Understood?"

He didn't get to answer as his thoughts of reason and sorrow were filled with pure rage. He went through hell on New Jerusalem and on the New Mombasa streets. Sure, Lilith wasn't there for the Jerusalem incident, but she did help him with navigating the mean streets. He didn't want to loose another friend. He couldn't accept that.

The Rookie delivered a quick uppercut to Handsome Jack's face. Jack flew back, somehow landing on his feet.

"Ok, let's go!" Jack taunted.

The fight was on.

* * *

 **Lilith  
** **Handsome Jack's base**

Lilith ran through the many corridors of Jack's new base, skidding to a stop every few feet to wait for Virgil to catch up and unlock doors. Jack had a tight grip on the base's security system; giving Lilith and Virgil mere seconds to pass through each door before it slammed shut with enough force to crush any body part left in the doorframe. However, these doors didn't have a very tight firewall to protect them. This worked to Virgil's advantage, as he and Lilith were able to quickly hack each door and move on.

They managed to find a door, which led to an armory of sorts. Many crates of weapons, ammo, grenades, and the like were scattered around as if Jack left the sorting efforts to a malfunctioning EXP loader. Many weapons caught Lilith's eye, from assault rifles to rocket launchers. Some were the ones that Lilith seen pretty much everyday on Pandora, while others were similar to the ones that the silent soldier used. She approached one of the crates and picked up a familiar weapon: an MA5C as it was called. She liked the weapon due to it's usefulness without a HUD system. The rifle apparently came with an electronic suite that included an ammo counter and a compass. There was even a strap attached to the grip and stock to allow her to store it with ease

Scanning the room once more, she picked up a second weapon. It was long and sleek. A scope was mounted onto the weapon's top and, like the MA5, came with an ammo counter. Also like the assault rifle, it came with a carrying strap. She checked the side of the weapon for a designation of some sort. She eventually found out that this weapon was a BR55. Deciding to test it, she aimed at one of the makeshift Hyperion logos on the wall. Pulling the trigger, a burst of rounds spat from the rifle's barrel. Lilith noted the weapon's recoil, it was an acceptable trade-off; a rifle that had some range with the extra recoil. She decided that it was a decent weapon and slid the strap of the MA5 over her body. It felt strange at first, but she would get used to it.

After collecting a few grenades, she approached the only other door in the armory, besides the one she came in. She prepped her BR55 and kicked the door down with a relative ease. She rushed into the morning sunshine…

…..only to find the silent soldier being held hostage by Handsome Jack

"Oh, look who decided to show up. It's our favorite bandit Lilith." Jack sneered.

Everything started to slow down as Lilith examined the scene in front of her. Many of apes, Brutes as they seemed to be called, littered the ground, a plethora of weapons beside them. A drop-ship of some kind hovered in the distance, looking somewhat familiar to the ones she seen on the streets. To her combined shock, horror, and surprise, Brick and Maya were on the ground next to Jack. She looked back at Jack. She wanted to go for the headshot, but the armored body of the silent soldier blocked his body.

' _Shit, can't make the headshot. Going to have to do this the hard way.'_

"Well, look who decided to replay the playbook." Lilith began smartly.

Jack lets out a menacing laugh, clearly trying to recover.

"Oh, you think that you may be in power of this situation, but you don't know anything yet. I have your friend, and you can't take me out without shooting him first. You still cannot even use your Siren powers due to the lack of Eridium! I'm the king, and you're the try-hard hero that can't even save him-".

She didn't prepare for what he did next.

Jack grabbed the base of the soldier's helmet and ripped it from his head. The first look at the silent soldier's face somewhat startled Lilith. He had scars crossing each side of his face. His skin was just a bit pale. The hair on his face detailed a small mustache and beard. His gray eyes locked with hers and gave Lilith surprise number 2 of the day:

He spoke.

"Lilith, do what you have to do. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine. Serve some first-class kickass to this dictator." he began hoarsely.

Lilith became stuck in a dilemma: either attempt to shoot Jack at the risk of killing his hostage or, she shuddered as the idea went through her brain, surrender. Taking another scan of the area, she focused on the drop-ship. She saw a head sticking out, one that looked similarly to the helmet that lay at Jack's feet.

' _Maybe it's one of the soldier's squad mates that he was looking for'_ she depicted.

Glancing back at Jack, she mentally complimented him on his ability to hold a hostage….

…except the part about covering his feet.

Grinning slightly, she glanced back at Jack before taking the rifle, aiming for the feet, and let out a burst. All three rounds found their mark and planted themselves into his foot. Jack let out a panicked scream and dropped his hostage to cradle his foot. The soldier grabbed his helmet and rushed back toward Lilith. She unslung the assault rifle and tossed it to the soldier.

"Oh, and by the way?" he began again, "call me Rookie."

She smiled at him, knowing that she had him back and safe from the monster that is Handsome Jack. Speaking of which, he struggled back to his feet and pointed a bloodstained finger at Lilith.

"You haven't seen the last of me bandit!" he wheezed. "You will NEVER know the true power of HANDSOME-"

Lilith's Battle Rifle cut him off, as it delivered the killing blow to the tyrant.

"Yea, yea. Shut up and give me my peanuts." Lilith remarked.

The drop-ship opened in the distance and a couple of soldiers came out to meet them. One held a rocket launcher similar to the one she saw in the armory, the other carried an MA5C. She automatically knew that the one with the rifle was Buck, the Rookie's squad leader. However, she didn't know the other one.

"So, this is the world-shattering tyrant that you called Handsome Jack, huh?" Buck began.

"Doesn't look like much, Gunny." The other replied as he turned and spotted Lilith. "Well hello beautiful…"

"Hey, I wouldn't mess with her like that if I were you, Mickey." the Rookie warned. "Last time she got mad, I was almost paralyzed."

"Yea, sorry about that." Lilith apologized.

"Speaking of which, what's with the kiss marks I found on my helmet when I woke up.," the Rookie questioned.

A few moments passed by as Lilith thought of the appropriate response.

"Uh, cosmic coincidence?" she tried.

"Yea, nice try." the Rookie shot back.

"Hey, let's go get your friends up." Buck suggested.

"Ok." Lilith simply replied.

* * *

 **The Rookie  
** **5 minutes later**

"I think that last can of adrenaline do the trick." Mickey quipped.

The two figures on the ground stirred as the medication took effect. They stood up, gazed at their surroundings with a slight shock and humor effect on their faces.

"What did I miss?" Maya questioned.

"Only the funniest way to kill a military tyrant." Lilith smartly answered.

"How do you do that?" Brick wondered.

"Shoot him in the foot with a burst-fire weapon while he holds a hostage." the Rookie replied.

"I'll have to add that to my 'to-do' list." Maya replied.

The group chuckled at the remark, but fell silent shortly after.

"Well, looks like I'll have to head back. I've got a planet to keep afloat." Lilith solemnly said.

"Well, it's been an honor fighting along side you," the Rookie responded. "Even if you tried to kill me on the streets. Go ahead and keep the weapon, take it as a reward for this little adventure we had."

She glanced down at the rifle that hung loosely in her hands, then back at the Rookie.

"Thanks, I guess. Well, best be off then." Lilith replied as Maya, Brick, and she practically waltzed toward the highway.

The Rookie was just about to turn to the Phantom before he saw Lilith stop dead in her tracks, turn around, and jog back to him, rifle in hand. When she finally approached him, she jumped forward, without warning, and planted a kiss smack on the lips. The Rookie felt dazed, confused as to why she was kissing him.

' _At least it feels good'_ he thought.

She finally pulled away and walked off, leaving the Rookie in a daze still.

"Come on Rookie, gotta get out of here before the Covenant glass the city." Buck called out from the Phantom.

The Rookie gazed off at the retreating figures of the Vault Hunters, catching a lingering glance from Lilith, before turning and hopping aboard the Phantom via gravity lift.

"We have the Engineer?" he called as he floated onto the Phantom's deck.

"Yea." Dare called back as Virgil floated in the already cramped space.

"Get us out of here Mickey." Buck called to the pilot.

"Okay Gunny." Mickey responded. "Where should we go?"

"Just find us a quiet spot to hide from the Covenant." Dutch replied for Buck.

The Phantom quickly rose in altitude as an armada of Covenant Super carriers flew in and began to glass the city.

* * *

 **Whew! That was a hard one to complete. I know that I said that it would be out by Christmas but I have been busy with Thanksgiving shenanigans and school so… yea.**

 **Anyways, as for the story, I will make a quick browse of the story to correct grammar, spelling, etc. Afterwards, I might make an alternate ending to the story. Let me know in the reviews or Private Message if you want me to do so. Once I am done, I will focus more attention on my Feet First into Hell story. I hope that I can make updates that are more frequent to it that won't leave you waiting for months.**

 **I won't be updating my other story until New Year's is over with, however. I want Christmas out of the way and more time on my schedule. Do not worry dear reader; I will make plans for more chapters to come in that department.**

 **MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!**

 **(I know that I am early but since I will not update until after the holidays, I want to say that to all of you before Christmas actually passes.**

 **RNG OUT!**


	11. Alternate Ending

**Hello everyone!**

 **I am back with the alternate ending to Vault Warriors and Silent Soldiers. I just appreciate all the support you people have given me for the past few months, giving me advice, reviews, suggestions, etc.**

 **Before I continue with the story, I will address something with this chapter:**

 **1\. This will** **NOT BE CANNON** **with the original story.**

 **2\. This will have other characters from other universes**

 **3\. This will** **NOT** **be a full rewrite. It will only contain select scenes from the Finale chapter (kind of like a blooper reel).**

 **If you want to understand the true ending, please read the previous chapter before reading this one.**

 **Anyways, on with the story!**

* * *

 **Lilith  
** **Handsome Jack's Makeshift base**

Lilith ran down each corridor with relative swiftness, keeping her eyes peeled for Jack's minions. She stopped at an intersection and scanned the two hallways presented before her. One had a simple look, but seemed to lead into the base, while the other looked very bloody and debris-filled. However, it seemed to lead to the outside world.

' _Too classic, Jack'_ Lilith thought boringly.

A loud banging on a door ended her thoughts. She turned around to find a door in the corridor from which she had just emerged. It seemed to be the same color as the wall of the corridor, a stupid option by Lilith's standards. She approached the door as another barrage of knocks echoed down the hall.

She decided to have some fun.

"What's the password." she mused, deepening her voice in attempt to disguise her voice.

"Password?" a voice piped up from the other side, "What password?"

"Password! They gave it out at the staff meeting fifteen minutes ago!"

"Meeting? What meeting? I was in here taking a nap!"

"Not supposed to let anyone out without it."

"If I wasn't at the meeting, how am I supposed to know the fucking password? Open up! I need ammo and there's a psycho in here!"

She paused for a second, "Does it know the password?"

"IT WASN'T AT THE MEETING EITHER!" the person yelled.

' _Ok, time to split.'_ Lilith thought quickly as the owner of the voice began pounding on the door once more.

* * *

 **Lilith  
** **Uplift Reserve Plaza**

"It ends here, Jack. Give up." Lilith commanded to the former militaristic tyrant.

He stood menacingly in front of Lilith, probably plotting something. The Rook and his friends all stood around, aiming their weapons at Jack, along with Maya and Brick.

Jack began to chuckle and said, "Oh, you think that I'm done. You think that I will just flop over and die. No, I will not go silently into the abyss of death. I have made my legacy known, and I will not allow that legacy to diminish. For I AM THE GOD DAMN HERO AND YOU ARE THE BANDIT!"

He spun on his heels and a bright blue pulse emerged from his wrist, knocking everyone on their asses. Out of his coat, he produced a remote that Lilith could not see from her point of view.

"Now, you will be punished for the fate of my daughter, and I will see it through."

He pressed a button on the device and a bright, green portal appeared in behind Jack. However, nothing would prepare Lilith for what happened next. As Jack's face morphed into a spark of pride, an orange-armored solder flew out of the portal, squishing Jack in an instant. Lilith was stuck in between emotions of laughter and absolute horror. Laughter in the fact that Jack got squashed by his own plan, and horrified in the quickness that the event happened.

The two figures on the ground in front of Lilith struggled for a minute before Jack successfully pushed the orange person off him. The orange figure had much larger armor compared to anyone else in the area, a golden visor, and a…

…traffic cone?

Lilith almost couldn't contain her laughter.

"Whoa, where am I?" the orange guy asked. "Does anyone have Oreos?"

Nobody could answer him as another figure came crashing into the orange figure. The orange one stumbled once more to the ground, while the new figure landed with relative grace. This figure had the same type of armor as the orange one, but it was black instead of orange, and had a shotgun in it's hands. The black figure scanned left and right before a third portal opened. As it glowed, the black figure swung the shotgun, golf-club style, into the orange one's groin. The orange one flew through the portal with incredible speed, faster than Lilith's eyes could track. The black figure then gave one last glance of the area before following the orange figure through the portal.

Nobody spoke for a solid few minutes as everyone attempted to gather his or her bearings.

"Did anyone else just…" Maya began.

"Yea…" Rook answered for her.

Everyone got to their feet and gazed around. Nobody was even sure if this was a dream or real life anymore.

"Uh… Where were we?" Jack asked calmly.

"We are the bandits and you are the hero." Lilith answered.

"Oh, right." Jack replied sheepishly before clearing his throat.

"Alas, I am the hero, and you are the bandit." Jack said, not putting much effort into his statement.

He pressed a button on his remote and the ground began to rumble. Jack smiled in glee as everyone else looked around fearfully.

"What's going-" Rook questioned before he was cut off by an earsplitting crackle.

A bright orange portal sprang in the sky, and the one other thing that Lilith did not want to see at the time appeared in the New Mombasa skyline above: Helios.

"AT LAST! I HAVE THE TRUE POWER TO ELIMINATE THE EVIL THAT CLAIMS MY LIFE!" Jack exclaimed.

"Uh, I don't think that using that is a good idea." Buck called.

"Oh and why not." Jack sarcastically called.

"Because there is an entire Covenant fleet in orbit, each ship capable of turning dirt to hot glass." Buck casually called back.

"Wait, what?"

Jack did not get his answer as another ear-splitting thunderclap echoed across the sky. Five, bulbous Covenant ships entered Lilith's vision above the sky next to Helios. All across the ships, Lilith could spot various blue glows as balls of plasma were hurdled at the station.

"Lilith, get into the Phantom, NOW!" Rook yelled over all the commotion.

Lilith did not need to be told twice. She booked it toward the Phantom drop ship, firing wildly back at Jack so he would not follow. Luckily, he was not paying attention as a shot from Lilith's rifle hit him in the leg.

Lilith could hear Jack scream in agony as she ran, the Phantom increasing in size as she approached its underside gravity lift. Stepping in the lift, she felt a brief moment of nausea as she ascended into the ship. Landing in the troop bay, she could tell that it wasn't going to be a comfortable ride; Brick was practically slouching under the ship's low roof.

"Ok Mickey, get us out of here!" Buck called up to the drop ship's pilot.

"On it Gunny!" he called back.

* * *

 **Lilith  
** **Orbital Station above Earth  
** **1 month later**

"Hey Rook?" Lilith called to the former silent solder.

He turned to face her, "What do you need? I don't have much time to talk; I have to be at the debriefing in a minute."

She ran a hand through her short, red hair. "Maya found a way for us to return home, I just want to say goodbye before we leave."

"Oh." he replied. "Well, I guess this will be the last time we will see each other then, huh?"

"Yea."

He reached into his pocket and produced a silent pistol like the one she had been given all those days ago, "Here, I want to keep this. You deserved it."

She took the pistol gingerly in her hands and examined it, it looked like the normal version she was given on the street but had a slightly cleaner finish to it.

"Thanks." she replied as she holstered the weapon.

To be entirely honest, she didn't really need the pistol. She already had the BR55 rifle she took from Jack's makeshift armory. However, she did not want to be rude.

Rook turned to leave, but then, "Hey!"

She decided to run up to him to perform her next action: she kissed the solder. She could not remember much from it, but she did remember the surprised look on his face as her lips planted on his.

After a few minutes, she backed away and strolled toward her comrades.

"You ready to go?" Maya asked.

Lilith turned one more time to find Rook walking away before replying, "Yea, let's get home."

* * *

 **Thank you guys for reading and enjoying my content. In addition, with the power of the beard of the red-haired engineer from the Polar Express, I would like to wish everyone a very, merry Christmas and a happy New Year.**

 **See you guys later!**

 **RNG OUT!**


End file.
